The Custom of the Country Part 30

He was closer now, and had her hands. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?

As far as Venice, anyhow; and then in August there's Trouville--you've never tried Trouville? There's an awfully jolly crowd there--and the motoring's ripping in Normandy. If you say so I'll take a villa there instead of going back to Newport. And I'll put the Sorceress in commission, and you can make up parties and run off whenever you like, to Scotland or Norway--" He hung above her. "Don't dine with Ch.e.l.les to-night! Come with me, and we'll talk things over; and next week we'll run down to Trouville to choose the villa."

Undine's heart was beating fast, but she felt within her a strange lucid force of resistance. Because of that sense of security she left her hands in Van Degen's. So Mr. Spragg might have felt at the tensest hour of the Pure Water move. She leaned forward, holding her suitor off by the pressure of her bent-back palms.

"Kiss me good-bye, Peter; I sail on Wednesday," she said.

It was the first time she had permitted him a kiss, and as his face darkened down on her she felt a moment's recoil. But her physical reactions were never very acute: she always vaguely wondered why people made "such a fuss," were so violently for or against such demonstrations. A cool spirit within her seemed to watch over and regulate her sensations, and leave her capable of measuring the intensity of those she provoked.

She turned to look at the clock. "You must go now--I shall be hours late for dinner."

"Go--after that?" He held her fast. "Kiss me again," he commanded.

It was wonderful how cool she felt--how easily she could slip out of his grasp! Any man could be managed like a child if he were really in love with one....

"Don't be a goose, Peter; do you suppose I'd have kissed you if--"

"If what--what--what?" he mimicked her ecstatically, not listening.

She saw that if she wished to make him hear her she must put more distance between them, and she rose and moved across the room. From the fireplace she turned to add--"if we hadn't been saying good-bye?"

"Good-bye--now? What's the use of talking like that?" He jumped up and followed her. "Look here, Undine--I'll do anything on earth you want; only don't talk of going! If you'll only stay I'll make it all as straight and square as you please. I'll get Bertha Shallum to stop over with you for the summer; I'll take a house at Trouville and make my wife come out there. Hang it, she SHALL, if you say so! Only be a little good to me!"

Still she stood before him without speaking, aware that her implacable brows and narrowed lips would hold him off as long as she chose.

"What's the matter. Undine? Why don't you answer? You know you can't go back to that deadly dry-rot!"

She swept about on him with indignant eyes. "I can't go on with my present life either. It's hateful--as hateful as the other. If I don't go home I've got to decide on something different."

"What do you mean by 'something different'?" She was silent, and he insisted: "Are you really thinking of marrying Ch.e.l.les?"

She started as if he had surprised a secret. "I'll never forgive you if you speak of it--"

"Good Lord! Good Lord!" he groaned.

She remained motionless, with lowered lids, and he went up to her and pulled her about so that she faced him. "Undine, honour bright--do you think he'll marry you?"

She looked at him with a sudden hardness in her eyes. "I really can't discuss such things with you."

"Oh, for the Lord's sake don't take that tone! I don't half know what I'm saying...but you mustn't throw yourself away a second time. I'll do anything you want--I swear I will!"

A knock on the door sent them apart, and a servant entered with a telegram.

Undine turned away to the window with the narrow blue slip. She was glad of the interruption: the sense of what she had at stake made her want to pause a moment and to draw breath.

The message was a long cable signed with Laura Fairford's name. It told her that Ralph had been taken suddenly ill with pneumonia, that his condition was serious and that the doctors advised his wife's immediate return.

Undine had to read the words over two or three times to get them into her crowded mind; and even after she had done so she needed more time to see their bearing on her own situation. If the message had concerned her boy her brain would have acted more quickly. She had never troubled herself over the possibility of Paul's falling ill in her absence, but she understood now that if the cable had been about him she would have rushed to the earliest steamer. With Ralph it was different. Ralph was always perfectly well--she could not picture him as being suddenly at death's door and in need of her. Probably his mother and sister had had a panic: they were always full of sentimental terrors. The next moment an angry suspicion flashed across her: what if the cable were a device of the Marvell women to bring her back? Perhaps it had been sent with Ralph's connivance! No doubt Bowen had written home about her--Washington Square had received some monstrous report of her doings!... Yes, the cable was clearly an echo of Laura's letter--mother and daughter had cooked it up to spoil her pleasure. Once the thought had occurred to her it struck root in her mind and began to throw out giant branches. Van Degen followed her to the window, his face still flushed and working. "What's the matter?" he asked, as she continued to stare silently at the telegram.

She crumpled the strip of paper in her hand. If only she had been alone, had had a chance to think out her answers!

"What on earth's the matter?" he repeated.

"Oh, nothing--nothing."

"Nothing? When you're as white as a sheet?"

"Am I?" She gave a slight laugh. "It's only a cable from home."

"Ralph?"

She hesitated. "No. Laura."

"What the devil is SHE cabling you about?"

"She says Ralph wants me."

"Now--at once?"

"At once."

Van Degen laughed impatiently. "Why don't he tell you so himself? What business is it of Laura Fairford's?"

Undine's gesture implied a "What indeed?"

"Is that all she says?"

She hesitated again. "Yes--that's all." As she spoke she tossed the telegram into the basket beneath the writing-table. "As if I didn't HAVE to go anyhow?" she exclaimed.

With an aching clearness of vision she saw what lay before her--the hurried preparations, the long tedious voyage on a steamer chosen at haphazard, the arrival in the deadly July heat, and the relapse into all the insufferable daily f.a.g of nursery and kitchen--she saw it and her imagination recoiled.

Van Degen's eyes still hung on her: she guessed that he was intensely engaged in trying to follow what was pa.s.sing through her mind. Presently he came up to her again, no longer perilous and importunate, but awkwardly tender, ridiculously moved by her distress.

"Undine, listen: won't you let me make it all right for you to stay?"

Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close, meeting his eyes coldly but without anger.

"What do you call 'making it all right'? Paying my bills? Don't you see that's what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?"

She laid her hand on his arm. "The time has come when I must be sensible, Peter; that's why we must say good-bye."

"Do you mean to tell me you're going back to Ralph?"

She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: "I shall never go back to him."

"Then you DO mean to marry Ch.e.l.les?"

"I've told you we must say good-bye. I've got to look out for my future."

He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatient senses labouring with a problem beyond their power. "Ain't I here to look out for your future?" he said at last.